


Various Ficlets

by trascendenza



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: 200 words, Community: remixthedrabble, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Remix, Wordcount: 100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-24
Updated: 2007-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:38:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4736240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Re-posting various ficlets together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stick It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sheep-wrangling scene.

"Yeah, well, stick this out, Ennis 'I can sit on my horse and supervise separatin the sheep' del Mar," Jack grumbled, making a vow then and there that no matter what kind of persuasion Ennis tried to use tonight, he wasn't havin none a it, and he could damn well stick it out with his right hand for all Jack cared. He hurled another sheep into their area of the pasture, kicking at the grass and muttering all sorts of curses onto Ennis, Aguirre, the fuckin Shelayans, and most of all, the sheep, such piss-poor excuses for animals that Jack kept telling them they'd be lucky if all he did was eat em at the end of the day.

Stick it out. Like hell.

*

His resolve, seemingly so firm hours earlier, began to fade as he watched Ennis atop his horse, a sight that he didn't often get to observe uninterrupted. He maneuvered Cigar Butt with a gentle confidence, thighs bunching tight underneath his jeans. He also couldn't help but notice the way the wind tousled Ennis's curls, unruly from the constant wind, or how the muscles in his neck tensed when he yelled at the Shelayans. The sheen of sweat on his skin was enough to make Jack lick his lips.

Damned if he'd give in that easy, though.

*

At dinner he was still going strong, unable to wash the stink of the sheep off his hands and look if he hadn't learned a few words a Spanish while he was at it, too. He stared studiously into his can of beans. He thought he'd been sick a them before—lookin at em this close just made him realize how nasty these things really were. Bettermost his ass. Better than pile a sheep shit, maybe. He could practically feel Ennis shooting him glances, wonderin what his problem was. Let him stew.

He'd wait another half hour at least.

*

Ten minutes later, Ennis walked over to Cigar Butt, mumbling something about getting back up to the sheep to get em bedded down.

"See ya in the mornin," Jack said, casual-like, licking his spoon very slowly and unnecessarily. He could see Ennis kick the ground, hunching his shoulders a little, and gave Jack one last look before turning to his horse.

"Aw, hell," Jack muttered, smiling. "Never was no good at stickin things out." Ennis didn't even have time to turn around before he was tackled.


	2. Gray Racer

Floundered, wouldn't hold, but refused to give up. Fought against melting like that snow had, barely stuck an hour.

The fat drops bubbled with electricity, filling up and over their tops with lightning that couldn't strike; conditions weren't right, not yet, a summer brewing but, by the end of it, still undecided. Caught onto a northwesterly wind, rode to near chafing, pushed hard and fast.

Rain might not mean much to a man caught in a storm other _than time to get in, bed down the horses for the night_. But it carries something all its own, something unique to the formations of precipitous happenstance. Might be called chance, though the cycles of nature are difficult to track all but for the eye of God. But the rhythms, now, they're in every flutter and screech of the wind, every bit of moisture that condenses on skin.

Those first drops fell onto his black hat; he tipped back and let the others come into his mouth, onto his tongue cold. Tasted like Texas.

He lit out the next day, only looking back once to wonder _what if?_

But even that, the rain had to wash away. Lightning wasn't ready to strike.


	3. Sleepless Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through Ennis's eyes. Written for melissasjack's prompt "let be, let be."

"I can't live like this anymore, Jack." The words were lost in Jack's coat, eaten up in time.

_Nothing begun, nothing ended, nothing resolved._

What Ennis yearned for and suffered in a way he could neither name nor forget was that night from the summer on Brokeback, when he had come up behind Jack and pulled him close, the wordless embrace quenching a deep and resounding drought.

They had stood before the fire, its flames fighting to hold the dark at bay, the column of their shadows joined on the faded gray rock face. The ticking of the watch in his pocket anchored him closer, logs snapping and sparks flying skyward to catch the last bits of light. Stars replaced the sparks above the horizon. Ennis's head lowered slow and steady, he breathed Jack in, rocked against him in the faded reds and yellows and found himself humming, vibrations of the tuneless prayer like the heat of the fire and, standing there, fell into a dream that was not a dream but a sleepless and unspoken hope until Jack shifted and, Ennis, unaccustomed to speaking dreams said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin' on your feet like a horse," and gave himself a shake, pushed away, and stumbled back into the darkness. His feet trembled in the spurs, the words "see you tomorrow," comforted by the catch of denim on leather, the sound of animal on earth.

Later, that dozy embrace crystallized in his mind as the single moment in his life when the white was all pawed out, when the moon was lost and he and he and Jack were the only men on Earth, held in the spell of the fire and the stars, the wind on their faces and the mountain at their back. Nothing touched it, not even the knowledge nothing would ever touch it. And maybe, he thought, he'd never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.


	4. Unseasonable Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for lolitaray's prompt "blanket of stars."

The morning dawned early, showering the sun down the crags of the mountain. Jack examined the horizon with a hand shading his eyes, remembering a day like this about this same time last year.

"Sheep're goin a be sweatin for sure, won't need that jacket up there," Jack advised, pouring the last dregs of the coffee into the dirt.

"Doubt I'll feel nothin." Ennis slung the jacket over his shoulders and just shook his head when he heard Jack chuckling as he rode away.

The day sweltered, hot and heavy, bringing man and animal alike to their knees; the only relief to be found was in the wind, blowing through every now and then to dry off the sweat and the water, flowing cold and fast as ever. Jack took advantage of both, lying naked at the banks of the river and letting the wind dry him off when he walked back to camp.

The night came, and with it, Ennis. He rode down from the sheep probably earlier than he should have, didn't bother with a shirt, saddle pack stuffed full of his clothes, gave the can of beans a forlorn look muttering about "too hot to even fuckin eat," discarded the heavy boots and plopped down next to Jack beside the unlit fire.

Jack didn't open his eyes for some time, sensing in that way of his when Ennis had cooled down just enough; he reached out, touching soft until the muttering turned into low murmurs and they went to it slow and sultry, sweat making the jeans slip off easy, a cool night wind bringing goose bumps up on their skin. Jack tasted like the snow of the river, Ennis, the meadow sage, and they spent the heat of the day onto the crushed grass, saying not a word, but none needed.

They slept skin to skin that night, the wind carrying their dreams, the stars their only blanket.


	5. Knowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For jackfingtwist's request: "Jack, pornstache era, debating Randall vs. Ennis."

"…nothin never come to my hand the right way."

Ennis grumbled, pulled him closer. He didn't have no answer. No surprise. Jack'd run out of answers years ago.

Not that Randall had one, neither. LaShawn had his balls wrapped up so tight even making one trip up to Lightning Flat was like trying to hog-tie a wild boar one-handed. Man was dreaming.

Jack knew a lot about dreaming. Hated knowing. Worst fucking thing Ennis'd ever taught him.

But getting even closer, fingers digging in hard and scuffing on the dirt, he remembered the best thing Ennis taught him.

Mountains move, all right. Just slow, and don't wait for no man.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for slashfest, for pandapony's request: what really happened in that motel room after being reunited after so many years.

Stung, like the time he'd held a handful of bees, too panicked to let go and spent a whole month walking around with tender finger bones. That's how Jack's lips were on his, everywhere they touched. By all rights it should have gotten better after that first one, dust crunching under their boots and the weight of his home pressing against his back, but he was feeling it in his bones again right now, still that stupid little boy who hadn't had the sense to let go when it was good for him, kept going back for more pain.

"Christ, Ennis," Jack exhaled, rubbing the back of his head with a tilted smile and flashing eyes.

"Sorry," he mumbled, stringing his fingers up clumsily to the sore spot where he'd banged Jack a bit too hard against the neon-splattered wallpaper, his blood humming when Jack's smile faded into heat, a sunrise on the cold crests of the mountain. The sun that had always burned away the morning dew, lifted the fog, and suddenly Ennis was nineteen again, colt-shy and stuttering under his breath as he pressed himself between Jack's bandy-legs; the weight of ring-bound vows sloughed off him as rough calluses worked their way under his belt, the sleepless nights of shuddering in his unwelcome dreams forgotten when hard teeth nipped under his collar.

"Been too fuckin long, friend." Jack's voice was pebbles under horse hooves. "Been way too fuckin long." Tough belt leather whined against denim and then Jack's hand found him; he groaned into the crook of Jack's neck as they two-stepped their way over to the mattress and fell atop it, too soft to replace memories of snow-hardened ground.

"Jack, Jack," Ennis whispered, strange to hear it aloud after all this time of saying it under skin, the tamped-down need surging up, "Jack." He dug fingers into Jack's tight-bound muscles, took deep body-wracking breaths, eyes watering with old cigarettes, cheap whiskey, the rough scent of lye that thinly overlaid the darker smell of Jack.

"Right here, Ennis," Jack said, locking their hips into place and roping his arms behind Ennis's neck, looking at him bull's eye straight and issuing the familiar challenge, lips and legs fallen open, waiting.

Ennis steadied one hand in the small of Jack's back, holding fast as he slicked himself fast and dirty and shoved into Jack with two thrusts.

"Jack—"

And it was all he could say, over and over like penance, dreams all tied up into four little letters that made his fingers ache, a little boy playing at a grown man's life, still hanging on tight no matter how much it stung, no matter how much it was going to hurt afterwards.


	7. Midair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for amdaz's request of "Jack was walking out of the bar after meeting Jimbo but pre-meeting Lureen."

**_Faster than the speed of gravity._ **

Jack slaps his hand down, gripping the small bills in his hand like a claim to manhood, shoving them deep in his pockets. If he holds them close, buries them deep enough, he might make it true.

But the laughter catches up to him. He doesn't run; he never runs. Even when he's seen the backhand descend, he stands firm. Because he knows those hands won't kill him, not like the bull's horns, those horns looking to tear him up from the inside out, rend him into a different man.

The hands are fierce, but they don't have the power to make him something he is not.

**_That's how it catches you from falling._ **

He's thought a lot about the difference between flying and falling. Whether landing on your feet means that you were soaring or whether it just means you were lucky, that the bull took a little mercy on you before he went straight for your guts. Sometimes he thinks even the air tastes different when you fly off after the eighth second has passed; it tastes so fine that even if you did die in that ninth, well, hell. You'd do it smiling.

When the first kick knocks out his knee from under him, he remembers. His body always remembers what it's like to fall. The lessons of the flesh are never forgotten. His daddy made sure of that.

The legs are vicious, and this time, there's no one to catch him. He wonders if there ever were.

**_And how it always, always, always slips away._ **

He's been through worse. Hell, a year later, and he's still reeling from that surprise punch. Wasn't so painful, except for the parts that wouldn't stop bleeding. Cracking his lips upward, it's a grimace so far removed from joy that it cannot be named a smile, and he remembers. Blood calling out to blood. His blood to another's, his pain to another's.

Isn't there something to be said for a want that goes deeper than happiness?

He thought so, once. Now he leaves his thinking up to the bulls he knows, and rides towards nothing every day and every night.

He's hanging midair, still, praying that someday he'll fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headers from "A Widow's Toast" by Neko Case. This is somewhat based on a storyline that was cut from the film involving Jack leaving the rodeo because he was "found out" by his fellow rodeoers, specifically in follow-up to his encounter with Jimbo.


	8. Tastes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an exchange with melissasjack.

The sugar's congealed up into a shiny gloss, apples stiff as cardboard on your tongue, the flaky crust drying out your lips. Used to be some comfort in it, back when you still believed in a world larger than a broken-down pick-up truck and a mother who would always be there when you woke up with nightmares. But the comfort's gone stale, just like your old bones, knuckling down against the table, gripping too tight on the fork.

"Girls don't fall in love with _fun_ , Ennis." She storms out, raging waters and your broken promises all over her pretty face. It's funny how you've spent a lifetime never making a single one—certainly not to her—but they always seem to make you. Cassie's just the final in a string of things that came to your hand, but you weren't strong enough too hold, or maybe too strong. You'd trade Jack any day; you didn't want any of this, just… didn't want.

The one thing you did… well. You try not to think on it.

Keep trying even as your feet are hauling you up, boot soles scraping on scratched linoleum to scratchier gravel to the smooth tile of the post office. Try not to think of it as the rubber band trembles in your fingertips, the bittersweet in your mouth washed away in an instant, replaced by the cool water of a spring you've done everything you can to forget, blue and pure and fine, but the body remembers. The body remembers far too much.

And then you are thinking about it, about Jack and how, even shot down at the knees like he left you, you're not ready. Not ready to be anything but wanting him.

A small slip of paper, red edged in white, letters that refuse to focus until you hold them back, _farther_ , pushing them away, but all you can see is that fucking _red_ , bleeding the word at you over and over again so that it rips through the barriers you're erecting.

Faint gasping, heart shudders; dust on your tongue, ashes to ashes. Death that no amount of whiskey will wash away.

 _Deceased_.


	9. Whitewash (Tomorrow's Ride Remix)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A one-shot deal was never in their cards._ So much gratitude to tinheart for the hand-holding and beta.

It's a headlong rush from the first day, the bull breaking their backs and every day the control zone slipping from their hands: eight seconds isn't long enough to keep them in the euphoric, bitter air. There's too much of him for this, dreams the size of a sky too big for this world, hopes too colorful for a future that sees only two: blood and metal.

Ennis sees this, and knows it, and lets him anyway, is willing to throw himself headlong into the ride for the sliver of a chance that before they fall, before they're torn limb from limb, that if just for a second—they'll fly. Ennis sees the lightning brewing at horizon line, the coming storm behind the easy laughter and shared whiskey, and can't help but try to control it even as he thrills in bringing it on.

It isn't about the fucking—it's more the way he sees Jack unfold to him like some sort of sunrise, all the colors blending together and ending in a brilliant kind of beauty that makes his gut turn, how when Jack thinks he can't see, he watches Ennis with a look in his eye that makes one-shot deal a washed-out lie, no matter what his mouth says, no matter whether the life they can't have ends at eight seconds.

Tomorrow changes with the buck of the bull, but today never will.


End file.
